Springtime is all about new green growth, pulling us out of the darker days of winter. We’re not the only ones excited about the return of green plant growth, and arguably, it’s less meaningful for us on a personal level than it is for all the grass-eating ruminants that depend on it for their lifeblood.
This is when dairy animals bear their young, and in the days before year-round milk from the grocery store, this is when we’d be tasting the first spring cream (and fresh butter).
Bright yellow and full of aromas from the fresh forage, the best cream of the year comes from grass-fed animals dining on these tender spring greens.
Around this time of year, I start to feel the cheesemaking itch, and I pull out all my favorite cheesemaking books and try my hand at new varieties. In the past, it’s been more intense projects, like traditional clothbound cheddar…but there are so many things that can go awry with a long-aged cheese.
This time, I wanted something more accessible. Maybe some Mascarpone or Crème Fraiche, or other simple things that can be done start to finish in less than 48 hours…yet still bring out the best of fresh milk and cream this time of year.
I just came across the book “Butter: A Rich History,” and it absolutely blew me away.
Sure, I knew that homemade butter with fresh, high-quality cream is going to be better than mass-produced grocery store butter made with the lowest percentage of butterfat you can get away with (and still legally label it “butter”). But, still, butter is just fat, right? It can’t make that much difference.
But…it does.
Butter, at least well-made butter, is much like a fine cheese. It has nuances in flavor, texture, mouthfeel, and aroma…and it’s hard to appreciate if you’ve only ever been exposed to mass-produced standardized sticks from the grocery store.
(Or, like me, you grew up eating margarine because your parents wanted the best for you…and back then, trans-fat laden margarine was the “healthy” alternative.)
Reading this book kicked off a whole new spring passion for me, and now we’re hosting “butter offs” with friends, blind taste testing different types…and putting those head to head with our own batches of homemade butter.
It’s amazing how much of a difference the type of cream makes, but that’s to be expected. What I didn’t expect is what a difference the churning method would make, as well as how the cream is handled before you make the butter.
The two batches pictured below were made from the same pitcher of cream, but two different churning methods. One produced a beautiful yellow butter that’s rich, creamy, and luscious…the other a greasy, grainy butter lacking rich color and with a pretty sub-par mouthfeel (at least in comparison).
There is an art to this process, after all….
Anyhow, like anything, you can really dive down the rabbit hole into the art and science of butter making (as I have), and if you want to, I’d strongly suggest the butter book I mentioned above.
For the rest of you, who maybe want to taste some truly spectacular homemade butter, without spending a month testing recipes, cultures and churning techniques as I have…I have a shortcut for you.
Here’s what you need to do.
Buy a pint (or a few pints) of the highest-quality heavy cream you can find. Any heavy cream will make butter, including ultra-pasteurized cream. Homemade butter (even from low-ish-quality generic supermarket cream) will pretty much always taste better than storebought butter. That said, the better your starting ingredients, the better the finished result.
Grass-fed Jersey cream and Brown Swiss cream are the best, and believe it or not, they are actually structurally different from the cream that comes from other breeds of cows. Modern holsteins not only produce less cream than those heritage breeds, but the fat molecules are different.
(The proteins are different, too, but that’s a different story, and if you’re interested in that, you can dive into the rabbit hole of A2/A2 milk. The Casein (or milk protein) used to be different historically, and modern cow breeds actually have different proteins as an unintentional side effect of the selective breeding that took family cows producing 2-3 gallons of milk a day and bulked up their production to 9+ gallons a day…but again, that’s another story.)
Ack…there I go again.
Didn’t I promise to keep it simple?
Ok, let’s start again.
For the best butter….
Buy a few pints of high-quality cream and a small container of cultured buttermilk. You just need a splash of live culture buttermilk to innoculate the cream, and you can use the rest for some epic pancakes or biscuits.
Splash in about 1/8th to 1/4 cup of buttermilk per pint of cream. Allow the mixture to culture at room temperature for 24 to 72 hours, until the top is nice and thick, like creme friache. The mixture should smell/taste fresh and buttery, with a slight lactic tang, like very mild yogurt.
This is optional and only necessary for cultured butter (which does taste better), but you can skip it and go right to churning, and it’ll still be delicious.
Pour the cream into a stand mixer, and mix on medium-low (3-4 speed, out of 10). A hand mixer works too, as does a butter churn. In a pinch, you can also just add 1 pint of cream to a quart mason jar and shake. Just make sure the jar is no more than half full.
All of these methods churn the butter slowly and gently, ensuring a good finished texture in the butter.
After about 10 minutes, you’ll have whipped cream. At about 15 minutes, the whipped cream will start to “break” and you’ll see butter golbules start to separate. Keep churning, at about 20 minutes it’ll start to come together into a firm mass of butter. Turn off the mixer at that point.
Strain off the liquid and reserve it for other uses. That’s cultured buttermilk, and you can use it to start your next batch of cultured butter.
It’ll keep in the fridge for about a week or so.
The butter itself still has some buttermilk in it, which gives it a lot more flavor, but shortens its shelf life. If you’re going to use the butter in the next few days, you can store it as is and it’ll be wicked flavorful.
If you want it to keep in the fridge for at least 3-4 weeks though, you should “wash” the butter by rinsing it with very cold water. Work it with a wooden spoon (not your warm hands), straining it every 30 seconds or so, and adding new cold clean water until the water runs clear. This should only take 2-3 minutes.
Pull the cold butter out of the water, drain, and pack it for storage (or use immediately). At this point, it’s done, but not fridge cold, so it’s still spreadable.
You’ll probably notice that once it’s refrigerated, your homemade butter is much firmer than grocery store butter. Even at a warm room temperature, it’ll still hold its shape.
That’s because it’s a higher butter fat content, as with grocery store butter, they actually add water to bulk it out and bring it down to the legal minimum butterfat required for something to be labeled “butter” in the US (which is 80%). European butter tends to be 82 to 84%, and homemade butter will usually land in the 82 to 86% range.
Ok, so now the cliff notes version. It's actually short this time, I promise.
Obtain high-quality cream
Add a splash of buttermilk to culture (or not)
Leave at room temperature for 24 to 72 hours (or not)
Churn at a medium-low speed in a stand mixer for about 20-ish minutes
When it comes together into a mass, turn off the mixer and drain the buttermilk.
Wash the butter with cold, clean water (or not)
Add Salt to taste (or not)
Enjoy!
I’ll have full posts up on Practical Self Reliance about Homemade Butter, Cultured Butter, Creme Fraiche, and Cultured Buttermilk soon…but in the meantime, you know how to make them all! Just in time for spring.
(And here’s where you can find all my other cheesemaking recipes if you’re feeling ambitious.)
Until Next Time,
Ashley at Practical Self Reliance
PS. Don’t forget to enter the Ball Blue Book Giveaway happening on Creative Canning (ending May 1st, 2024).
I've done this and it is delicious but not cost efficient. Retail cream here is expensive. Need to find a wholesaler willing to sell smaller quantity reasonably
Fun article, I'm a butter geek myself.
One suggestion, try stopping the churning BEFORE the butter lumps together. Rinse the granulated butter in a fine mesh sieve. You butter will get cleaner and last so much longer.